The Nigerian polity is generally suffused with lamentations and complaints of leadership failure which is indubitably true in many respects. Governments come to power on the strength of failure of their predecessors to achieve what can amount to substantial, if any, progress to better the lots of the masses. Unfortunately, the same cycle of complaints sooner than later becomes the causal factor for which the people wish they had not supported the emergence of the incumbents.
Whether there is justification for such regrets and agitation for change of government is another issue. It is palpably clear that the inability or failure of a government can be much more felt by the less privileged in society who have little or no margin to absorb the error of government policies due to their economic stations in life. This normally informs the impatience to tolerate a slipping government or unfavourable government policies. While the political class bears the burden of ultimate query and condemnation for its indiscretion and, in some cases, clear instances of corrupt practices, the masses themselves deserve a blame in promoting the rot that often tears the fabric of society.
One must be realistic to state that choice of wrong government and election of incompetent and corrupt leaders do not occur by divine intervention as the electorate do not seem to know why they vote and why it is necessary to insist on good governance rather than allowing greed and hunger to dictate their suffrage. Realising that many voters are often led by their stomachs rather than their brains, the politicians have perfected the politics of stomach infrastructure to enslave in perpetuity the masses they are supposed to serve and represent. They, therefore, loot the resources they are constitutionally required to maximise its allocation for the welfare of the people. Many modern politicians have, therefore, seen politics as a means of self-enrichment and public office as a convenient pedestal for self-elevation to permanent opulence. The result is mass impoverishment that robs the people of their self-worth and commercialisation of their voting power during elections.
An average voter then waits for the election time and rather than scrutinising the candidates based on manifestoes and programmes, he bargains for stipends from the highest bidder forgetting that such crumbs do not last the election day and his bread is never buttered beyond the polling booths. Consequently they have sentenced themselves and children to perpetual poverty. Honest politicians without the filthy lucre do not, therefore, stand a ghost of a chance with such electorate. They run after and celebrate the thieves of their destiny and the sharers of their future. These people populate the grassroots of many political parties and they consider politics their professional engagement by which they are entitled to milk an innocent entrant with a bulging pocket who miscalculates enough to think that public service is a means of elevating the masses and thereby offers himself to serve in an elective capacity. These downtrodden politicians could be full of fascinating native intelligence and every speech made to impress the naïve entrant will be laced with proverbs and enthralling anecdotes. They are encyclopaedia of unrecorded politically riveting accounts of how an Awolowo dictated the pace of local politics at a meeting held in their presence and on which such numerous accounts they pride themselves as better qualified to lead you by the nose to your political Golgotha. All is in a bid to scam you of your hard-earned money. They leave home early in the morning to resume their deceitful trade in the house of a public officer or an aspirant at whose expense they believe they are entitled to three square meals and a stipend to lace their pockets at the end of the day. Some may even choose to pass the night in any available corner in your compound under the guise of an abiding loyalty to your aspiration. They are the last you see in the night and the first to wish you good morning. They are the first conveyor of good news of your new born baby delivered by “your wife” yester night as you are evidently confused wondering how your wife who reached menopause a decade ago could be delivered of a baby yesterday without a gestation period sufficient to birth a new baby. Woe betide you if your wife is the jealously ignorant and impatient type that had been suspecting you of infidelity but waiting for the God-forsaken day your secret would be revealed. The rest might be a story you would live to wish had not happened.
Unfortunately, educated young men and women of various educational qualifications and uneducated ones with little or no skills have swelled the ranks of these ubiquitous politicians due to joblessness or lack of necessary skills. Some have abandoned their vocations due to the state of the economy that has rendered their trade of little economic value and have, therefore, taken up politics of beggary as a better alternative. They do not have any sense of shame like traditional drummers and insults from rich politicians do not constitute inhuman and degrading treatment to their thoroughly eroded self-pride. Many of them have built eminent chests, muscles and biceps by which they have appointed themselves into security apparatus of politicians for whom they are ready to die forgetting that their corpses can never benefit from the largesse of their over-protected idol. They have examples of “blessed” rich thugs who fly first class abroad, ride latest posh cars without any legitimate business besides cleaning the murderous lavatories of some political gods. In recent times, they even occupy strategic public offices. These latter day nouveau riche of violent capabilities and dispositions have put first class degrees to shame as many holders of the academic laurel rather wallow in abject poverty. It is a society with misplaced priorities, abject warped mentality and utter debasement of anything dignifying.
The politicians of moral debauchery have found these derelict errand men and women to be more useful than the thinking souls. They provide them with most dangerous weapons to terrify opponents and show capacity for terror at the slightest opportunity.
They use them to rig elections and do not have pity for them when these agents of darkness meet a mortal end in a dangerous combat. Godfathers, in the traditions of the mafia, even plot and carry out assassination of any unfortunate hireling who might spill beans while in police net. The condemned spirits are buried together with the secrets they harbour the public knowledge of which might bring down the murderous edifice of their principal.
To sustain their control of the political space, politicians resort to lunatic accumulation of wealth at the expense of public good knowing that they would be rejected by the gluttonous electorate once they have no funds to lavish like a money printer. They know that they are only politically relevant for so long as they control the lives of the masses. They convert funds meant for provision of public utilities and infrastructures and stash money away in foreign lands and run surrogate accounts only traceable to dead relatives or wretched housemaids. Some even boast of having no known bank accounts and they live in satanic luxury beyond any known business. At times, I wonder whether it is not a deliberate policy of the politicians not to keep the masses in abject poverty so as to continue to exploit them. Regrettably, this mass of the poor, incapable of reasoning continuously continues to form the bulk of the electorates that determines the leadership of the Country. Little wonder therefore that thy hardly understand the rationale behind the exercise of their franchise, much less the quality of the person they are voting.
At the end, they wallow further in their ignorance and poverty.
Recently at a summit organised by a non-governmental organisation in Abuja on “increasing citizens’ participation in curbing the illicit flow and repatriation of stolen funds within and from West Africa”, a campaign was mounted on the need to mobilise and educate the people at the grassroots who are the ultimate losers of the practice of cross-boarder transfer of illicit funds. While this is a laudable objective and one that all sane minds must consider imperative, it is more of a lost cause with the kind of society in which we have found ourselves. Here is a community in which people at the grassroots see proceeds of crime as legitimate once it is used to cater for their immediate needs of stipends by a raving predator. People build parapets of support and information around armed robbers and kidnappers who dispense proceeds of illegitimate trade to the masses in the guise of philanthropy. They have forgotten that a robber that mounts a horse and spays cash in broad daylight shall recoup his investment from the unwary public in the dead of the night. The recent case of Wadume is a pointer to how low a society could sink in the name of hunger and money matters. His people celebrated the sad murders of loyal and diligent police officers by soulless soldiers trained and groomed by the system to protect the people but whose gusto for wealth pulverised all noble missions of the Armed Forces. May the gallant souls of the upright officers of the Nigerian Police rest in perfect peace away from the bosom of a decadent society.
The conspiracy of the masses against the downtrodden! The conspiracy of the masses against their own interest! How does one educate a people whose orientation of uprightness is dictated by their stomachs and a blurred vision of Sesame Street to riches? How do you engage a people whose active layers see nothing wrong in corruption and lazy but luxurious lifestyles? A youth was assassinated for drug peddling in a foreign land and his people organised a massive and lavish funeral in celebration of a depraved and ignominious “hero”! A rhetorical Yoruba proverb says “what excites an ex-convict that throws a bash?” which shows the premium placed by ancient wisdom on unblemished character. Money worship has permeated and pervaded the entire package of our society. Narratives of honesty and brilliance in proud work ethics appeal to no one as musicians celebrate cyber crimes and glorify youths whose luxurious lifestyles are not justified by any legitimate source of income. Religious leaders celebrate the highest tithe payer and spray holy water on ritual money. To them God works in a miraculous way and He has even compelled money to provide money by which the gospel is spread. Halleluya! Allahu akbar!
It is safe to conclude that a society that compromises its future is in a conspiracy against its own progress. No conspiracy of a class is more dangerous and enslaving than one perpetrated by the less privileged against themselves. The reason is quite obvious as thy constitute the majority of the voters in the land. The conspiracy of the elite has always been broken by the liberation of the flotsam and jetsam in a revolution destined to happen. But where the masses conspire against themselves as it is the case in Nigeria, the privileged class has nothing to fear. Their slaves are acclimatised to mirroring themselves in the garb of their oppressors and never will they struggle to extricate themselves from the grip of their poverty trap. This is however not to exonerate the elites who are equality guilty in several respects. This we shall consider in our subsequent series.